Dagger: CI of the Future?

Dagger: CI of the Future?

Author: Bret Fisher December 15, 2023 Duration: 57:08

Application delivery doesn’t have to suck. Bret and Nirmal are joined by Solomon Hykes, the founder or Docker, to talk about Dagger and their application delivery-as-code that runs anywhere.

💥 This episode is brought to you by our valued sponsor and friends at CAST AI! 💥
CAST AI is an all-in-one Kubernetes cost optimization and automation platform that achieves over 60% average compute cost savings without months of onboarding. You get lightning fast autoscaling, downscaling, spot VM support and more with no hit to performance.

Use the link below and optimize your first cluster for FREE.

cast.ai/bretfisher

Solomon started Dagger after he left Docker in 2018 with a few other Docker VPs, including Sam Alba and Andrea Lusardi.

Dagger is an innovative startup aimed at simplifying and revolutionizing DevOps automation and software delivery. Created to address Docker's unattended gaps, Dagger streamlines software building, testing, and deployment, exhibiting immense growth potential and wide applications in fostering software ecosystems.

For a few years now, they've been publicly iterating on the idea of a programmable and portable automation system for software building, testing, and deploying.

In this episode, they cover many topics around Docker and Dagger. I've been convinced that I need to start trying out Dagger in my projects.

The live recording of the complete show from November 16, 2023 is on YouTube (Ep. #241)

★Topics★
Dagger website

Creators & Guests

  • (00:00) - Intro
  • (01:05) - Introducing Solomon Hykes and His Journey
  • (01:46) - Solomon's Life Post-Docker
  • (03:21) - The Genesis of Dagger
  • (08:31) - The Vision Behind Dagger
  • (25:05) - Modules and Declarative Model in Dagger
  • (34:32) - Integration of Dagger with Other Tools
  • (36:25) - Docker Slim and Dagger
  • (37:49) - Question: Dagger, Framework or Library?
  • (38:30) - Question: Dagger's with BuildKit
  • (38:54) - Question: Predictions for Dagger's Adoption
  • (40:20) - Demonstration of Dagger's Functionality
  • (40:36) - Dagger's Compatibility with Other CI Platforms
  • (50:35) - Getting Started with Dagger

You can also support my free material by subscribing to my YouTube channel and my weekly newsletter at bret.news!

Grab the best coupons for my Docker and Kubernetes courses.
Join my cloud native DevOps community on Discord.
Grab some merch at Bret's Loot Box
Homepage bretfisher.com ★ Support this podcast ★

Bret Fisher hosts DevOps and Docker Talk: Cloud Native Interviews and Tooling alongside Nirmal Mehta, pulling conversations directly from their live audience sessions. This isn't a theoretical lecture series; it's grounded in the practical, often messy realities of building and running modern systems. Each episode digs into the specific tools and philosophies shaping infrastructure today, from the foundational elements like Docker and container orchestration with Kubernetes or Swarm to the broader cultural shifts of DevOps, SRE, and platform engineering. You'll hear discussions that span the entire software lifecycle, touching on the integration of security with DevSecOps, the automation promises of GitOps, and what "Cloud Native" truly means for development teams. The dialogue stays focused on actionable insights and real-world use cases, offering a genuine sense of what works and what doesn't in the field. For anyone navigating the container and cloud ecosystem, this podcast serves as a regular, insightful check-in with practitioners and experts, hosted by someone deeply embedded in the community. The natural, interview-driven format makes complex topics accessible, ensuring listeners come away with more than just buzzwords-they get context and clarity.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 50

DevOps and Docker Talk: Cloud Native Interviews and Tooling
Podcast Episodes
A single API for multicloud with Control Plane [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 54:26
Control Plane CEO Doron Grinstein joins me to discuss how they’ve created an AI-native cloud API that virtualizes multi-cloud and hybrid cloud to simplify management and ship faster.Watch the video of this episode. 🖥️ Wa…
CI/CD via agent tools: Skills, CLIs, MCP, and more with Semaphore [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:17:24
What does an AI-native CI look like? The Semaphore team joins me to talk about their focus on making your agent harness the gateway to testing, fixing, and deploying your code.Video podcast version here: https://youtu.be…
K8s Maxxing with AI-Native Platform Engineering Stack with OpenChoreo [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 54:59
OpenChoreo is a “batteries included”, AI-native Kubernetes platform stack for Platform Engineers that combines GitOps, Observability, AI Agents, and Workflows into a custom K8s distribution “super pack” that is managed v…
Docker AI, what’s new with MCP, Agents, Sandboxes, and more [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:16:20
Michael Irwin of Docker joins me to run through Gordon AI improvements, Docker Hardened Images and what's now free, Docker Sandboxes for running agents in proper isolation, Model Runner updates including MLX support on M…
Backup S3, Google Drive, iCloud, Notion with Plakar [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:06:53
Bret is joined by the founders of Plakar - Julien Mangeard and Gilles Chehade - to nerd out over backup engineering. The kind where you're building your own file formats and cryptographic layers, not just wiring up cron…
Your Images are Out of Date (probably) - The Silent Rebuilds problem [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 36:41
Container base images (like Official Docker Hub images) are often updated without new tag versions. I call this Silent Rebuilds. There's no way to know this happens without image digest-checking automation like Dependabo…
AI Wins and Misses for 2025 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:14:56
I'm joined by Nirmal Mehta of AWS and Viktor Farcic from Upbound, to go through our 2025 year in review. We look into the AI tools that consumed us this year, from CLI agents to terminal emulators, IDEs, AI browsers - wh…
Find Your K8s Happy Path with RawKode Academy [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 51:12
I talk with David Flanagan, aka Rawkode, about his new opinionated Tech Matrix that helps you navigate the overwhelming CNCF landscape. https://rawkode.academy/technology/matrix😇 My new GitHub Security workshop has launc…
Move K8s Stateful Pods Between Nodes [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 44:42
Bret is joined by Philip Andrews and Dan Muret of Cast AI to discuss pod live migration between nodes in a Kubernetes cluster. 😇 My new GitHub Security workshop has launched! A free 2-hour workshop with hands-on labs to…
Swarm 2030. Let's Go! [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 23:47
Bret discusses exciting news about Swarm being maintained until 2030.😇 My new GitHub Security workshop has launched! A free 2-hour workshop with hands-on labs to harden your repos and your workflows from common supply ch…